THE CURIOUS INCIDENT OF THE DOG IN THE NIGHT-TIME BY MARK HADDON NOTES

PLOT STRUCTURE ANALYSIS

Reflecting the themes of the book, the structure of the plot is based on order, a disruption of the order, and a re-establishment of a new kind of order. The novel begins as a straightforward whodunit, as Christopher tries to solve the death of Wellington. A second mystery is also in the process of being solved, which he initially does not realize. When he does, the seemingly simple problem of a dog's death takes on a new dimension. Then, the mystery narrative is disrupted in the middle of the novel: both mysteries, the overt and the covert, are solved by Ed Boone's confession. From there, a less esoteric kind of puzzle-solving (going from point A to point B, Swindon to London) and a more everyday narrative (uniting with his mother and taking his A-level math exam) takes over.

Thus, the mystery of the novel is itself built on a trope that Christopher does not mention: the MacGuffin, which is a Red Herring which starts the action but misdirect readers away from the true central plot. This is how the second, hidden mystery manifests itself, as the details of that hidden mystery - the......

AUTHOR'S STYLE

As the story is narrated from the perspective of a mathematically-gifted autistic teenager, the style reflects this experience. The descriptions are often straightforward and factual, though when he becomes involved in a particular idea or is describing a stressful experience the writing becomes more convoluted, with long run-on sentences to indicate the excess of sensory or intellectual stimuli that he cannot fully process. To help keep his ideas clear, Christopher makes certain orthographic decisions - bolds, italics, capitalizations - to make a particular word or phrase stand out, thus making their importance more apparent to the reader.

To help convey the unique perspective of Christopher, the novel is often unbalanced in how it.......

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The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time Summary Notes

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